Chapter I THE PROBLEM AND ITS BACKGROUND

Introduction Reading is a means of language acquisition, of communication, and of sharing information and ideas. Like all language, it is a complex interaction between the text and the reader which is shaped by the reader s prior knowledge, experiences, attitude, and language community which is culturally and socially situated. The reading process requires continuous practices, development, and refinement. Reading is an interactive process that goes on between the reader and the text, resulting in comprehension. The text presents letters, words, sentences, and paragraphs that encode meaning. The reader uses knowledge, skills, and strategies to determine what that meaning is. Reading comprehension is the ability to understand

what we read -- where words have context and texts have meaning. Reading comprehension skills allow us to read proficiently, learn effectively, problem-solve, strategize, conceptualize, and succeed in life. Without reading comprehension skills, many students are left behind. Reading comprehension is the heart and goal of reading, since the purpose of all reading is to gather meaning from the printed page. If a student says words in a passage without gathering their meaning, one would hesitate to call that reading. By age six to seven children should be sensitive to such characteristics of stories asthe main character, sequence of events, inferences, the motives and feelings of characters, and sentence order. As they get older, children should be more efficient at recognizing and recalling facts, recognizing and inferring main themes and relationships, drawing conclusions, making judgments and generalizations, predicting outcomes, applying what has been learned, and following

directions. The comprehension goals of the intermediate grade address these abilities as well as those required for independent study: skimming, using reference materials, outlining, summarizing, altering reading rate and focus as the purpose of reading changes, use of headings, note taking, and so on .For many students, reading comprehension is a major problem. There are mainly three causes for poor reading comprehension: First is, if the person has a language problem . Language plays a vital role in reading. One cannot read a book in a language unless one knows that particular language. If a child's knowledge of English is poor, then his reading will also be poor, and naturally also his reading comprehension. Second is, if the foundational skills of reading have not been atomized .

When a person attempts to speak a language in which he has not become automatic yet, he will necessarily have to divide his attention between the content of his message and the language itself. He will therefore speak haltingly and with great difficulty. As Yap and Van der Leij explained in the Journal of Learning Disabilities